


The Rift

by doesnotloveyou



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Childhood, Cute and Slightly Sad, Fluff, Fluffy Fluff but not enough to gag on, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Perfectly Innocent fic, Protective Ten, Science Fiction, The Doctor is just a big kid, kids being kids, poking things with sticks, w/ Feels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-02 01:38:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11499066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doesnotloveyou/pseuds/doesnotloveyou
Summary: "Can you take me far away?"The (Tenth) Doctor accidentally picks up a small companion running from a bad situation. Together he and his strange little friend galavant across the galaxy until one fateful day separates them forever.





	1. The Passenger

            I slam the bolt and gasp so hard I cough. I turn too quickly and fall to my knees, scraping them against the metal grating. I look around, squinting. This is the biggest room I’ve ever been in.

            The lights are blaring bright, some of them flickering and flashing. Crazy arches hold up the ceiling, and there’s a giant, humming machine in the center of the room. It’s warm here. Yes, the metal around me is warm, I’m not imagining it. I lay my face against the floor, tuck my numb feet into the stiff coat, and think about how much sleep I used to get in my cell and how tired I got of sleeping. Now I might sleep forever in this bright, warm room with a lock to keep people out. What a nice big room…

            There’s a buzzing noise near my head. I jump up right away, but my legs are useless and I fall backwards onto my rear, hitting my head on the door.  

            “Oh no, no, no! Sorrey!” the tall man says with a very hurt face. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

            He kneels down to my level, his long brown coat like a tent around his legs. There are two heartbeats inside of him. “How’d you get in here, then? Did I leave the door open again?” Scrunchy-faced, he inspects the door over my head. “Oh, you bolted it yourself, what for, what’s following you?”

            I don’t like all his questions so I growl and curl up tight.

            “‘Ey,” he warns, “don’t get grumb’ly with me. I’m not going to hurt you.” He pockets the weird pen he was holding and gives me a sudden cheery smile. “I’m the Doctor. What’s your name then?”

            “I hate doctors,” I say before coughing. Talking hurts. “Don’t touch me.”

            “What have the doctors been doing?” His voice changes so often. It’s dark and gray sounding now, and his eyes are hard and flat and the smile is gone from every part of his face.

            “They cut—” I cough again and my throat burns, but I keep coughing like I might never stop. The doctor bounces up, runs over to the big machine, and pulls out a drawer. Before I’m done coughing he’s back.

            “Here,” he fiddles with something small wrapped in sticky paper, “put this in your mouth and suck on it.”

            I don’t want to, but then I see it’s red, shiny, and too big to be medicine. I can’t remember what the word for it is, but it’s a good thing I remember. I take it quickly and put it in my mouth. I gag a little. It’s not as sweet as I remember it being.

            “That should make your throat feel better. Now.” He slaps his knees and stands up. His shoes have stars on them. “That door is _locked_ , no one can get in at all, ever. Except…sometimes…but only on _very_ specific occasions that _weren’t_ my fault.”

            I’m still looking at his shoes and sucking on the bitter thing in my mouth. My throat does feel better. I look up at his face now and he’s looking down at me with his funny, sticky-uppy hair and his pointy face. What a weird guy.

            “Were the bad doctors following you?” he asks.

            I nod, then shake my head, then don’t know what to do. “I killed him, but the soldiers were following me.”

            “You killed him, wha-? How’d you kill him?”

            “Well, maybe I didn’t kill him.” I test the red sucker between my teeth. “He burned my fingers if I cried during tests.”

            His eyes get big like pools of water. “Get away from the door, come over here, it’s warmer by the console.”

            I follow him and he sweeps me onto a bench before running out of the room. I crack the sucker between my teeth. Candy. It’s called candy. Candy tastes horrible.

            He comes bounding back in and covers me in blankets. Then he changes his mind, removes all the blankets, takes away my coat, and covers me in blankets again. He did it fast and from behind, so he missed the blood on my arm and shirt. A pair of fuzzy socks are produced and he stuffs my feet into them. They go up past my knees.

            “Hm, I don’t know if I have any clothes in _midget_.”

            I’m not short, but I giggle anyway. His smile is familiar, a medium smile that shows mostly in his eyes. It feels safe, so I smile back. Then I remember why I came in here. “Can you take me far away?”

            His smile gets much, much bigger. “Oh, that I can.”


	2. The Doctor

"Is it yours?" he asks again, wiping the blood off my arm harder.

"I told you, it's someone else's." I fell asleep while eating under the console and, afraid I'd overheat, he took off my blanket and coat.

He finishes cleaning and turns me to look him in the eye. "Now I want you to be honest with me, it's alright I won't be mad. Did you make this other person bleed?"

Did I? I shake my head. The box shudders and he grips my arm as we tilt a little. Do I have to run again?

"Well," he jumps to his feet, "no more gloomy business. Do you like jungles? A lot of Disney movies are set in jungles- course, not before I picked you up- you'll like jungles; just remember to stay close."

Bounding to the console he slams back a lever and taps colorful light buttons. Squinting at a fuzzy screen he then says, "Alternately, we could be somewhere snowy. I don't, ah...Do you like snow?"

"No," I say loudly.

"Right." He bends his eyebrows. "Right, of course, you just came from snow."

I look around for the big coat in case I do have to go back into snow.

"Wehll," that word sounds different every time he says it, "let's get on with it anyhow. Put those socks and wellys on. Go on. You'll need them in a rainforest too."

I do as he says while he runs from one side of the room to the other getting things and talking happily. When I stand up to step into my boots I see a hallway beyond the console. I wipe my nose on my sleeve and walk to it.

"Oi, where you going? Door's that way."

My foot's already in the hallway, but he's been nice so I look over my shoulder. "I have to pee."

His face wrinkles in disgust. "It's the first door on the left. Don't get lost. And make it quick."

I don't remember toilets looking like that or how they work, but I wash my hands in the sink for a long time and splash my face. The mirror's small and too high for me to use. I'm afraid I'll see a monster, so I don't climb up to look in.

There's a loud knock on the door. "I said make it quick you've been in there eighteen minutes."

Eighteen is not long even I know that. I forgot about towels, so when I open the door he sighs and takes me back in to dry my hands and face. Then he turns me around and I hear his hands in his pockets. Uneasy, I turn around again, but he spins me without saying anything and pulls my hair back. I remember what this feels like and hold still until the hair thingy snaps in place. All at once I am very happy and very sad.

The mossy ground outside sinks beneath my boots.

"Spongy," says this doctor. 

Warm, thinks me. I wipe my wrist across my forehead.

He left his brown coat inside and has rolled up his sleeves. "Go 'head, bounce on it. Watch me."

He springs up and down while making a ridiculous face. I smile.

"There it is, I knew you had a sense of humor somewhere."

He puts out his hand. I look at it to see what he's offering, but it's empty. 

"No, no, I'm just going to lift you over that log- Oh, never mind." He walks ahead of me and leaps onto the log. "C'mon. You're tall enough to climb it."

"We're somewhere else," I say when I've climbed the log. 

"Oh, good catch. Didn't realize you were on a spaceship did you?" The doctor starts to whistle. "Can you do that? Here, like this."

He pinches his own lips and I laugh. We practice whistling while we walk, and he teaches me the names of animals we see. I pick up a blue bug when he says I can, name it Henry, then let it go so it won't get lost. 

"Why do you have two hearts?" I ask, wondering if bugs have hearts at all.

"Why do you only have one?" The doctor flips my ponytail. "A human has one heart, a Time Lord has two."

"Oh," I guess I should know what a Time Lord is, "but what does the other one do?"

"Well." He bobs his head to make his voice dip and rise. "One gets cold and the other stays soft. That's sort of an old saying that I just botched, but you get the point."

I swing from a vine that's touching the ground. "Hearts can't get cold they're inside you."

"Well, let's hope you're right. Let's hope your one little human heart stays warm." He pokes me in the ribs and I squirm. 

We race through tree roots and cross a stream. Whenever I outrun him I keep checking to make sure he hasn't left me.

I'm ready to stay in the jungle, build a nest up in a tree, when he says we need to go back. I put down my latest friend, an orange lizard named Laura, and follow the doctor back to the ship. On the way I look for Mike, Juan, Elisa, and Henry, but they've all gone home too. 

I let the doctor help me over the log because my legs are dragging and my stomach hurts. This time when he puts out his hand there are tree nuts in it, so I crunch them as he locks the door.

 


	3. The Monster

"That's it." My doctor holds out his arms. "Be very careful."

So very careful, I reach down through the branches and hand him the bag. Taking it quickly, he drops it on the ground with a clink, then puts his arms out again. "Watch your footing."

It might have broken. I was careful with it all that way and he just dropped it on the ground. I take his arms, and he grabs me all at once and sets me on the ground.

"Whoo, you had me worried there."

He brushes my hair out of my face and checks me for scratches. Bending down, I pick up the bag by its tassel. "I thought it was important?"

He furrows his brows. "Well, it's not like there aren't  _more_." He puts a hand on my head and tilts it back. "There's only one of you...prob'ly."

I giggle and he pinches my nose.

"We-ll," he says it funny and I giggle again, "we'll take those back to the TARDIS, and then get some vitties, eh, what you say?"

He says everything funny.

They're hard to eat, all green limbs and tough parts. I bite into a stalk with my side teeth and snap it off. The woman person had a long, water-trickling laugh. My doctor thinks she's funny and laughs too. I don't get the joke, but I like it when they laugh. Her purple fingers are fibrous, tickly as she plays with my hair. 

"How do humans get it this color?"

"Oh, nearly the whole planet has lovely brown hair." He smiles at me with his teeth and takes a bite of  _skarnosom_. "Tell her your name. The way I taught you."

My mouth is full.

"She has not finished chewing." Scska hands me the whole plate. "Eat. There's plenty.  _You_  tell me how she says her name."

I cough on the root. It tastes good, my doctor says like peanuts, but it's more like gnawing tree bark. 

He says my name, rolling the "r" hard. "I doubt there's a trace of blonde or ginge in her genetics anywhere."

I remember blonde. Not on the soldiers, but on someone before them.

"And you say she's a foundling?"

The doctor clears his throat, but I know what that word means. There are red balls on the plate, so after I swallow I take three. They taste like almost ripe blackberries- tangy, wet; only the bouncy centers dye your fingers and lips blue, not purple. I eat four more.

Scska reaches into the tassel bag and withdraws one of the glassy, glowing orbs. "This one is perfect. Very delicate fingers, humans have."

"Delicate, but sturdy," his lips poke out with that word, on purpose, to make me laugh.

"Hm," Scska replaces the orb, "it's a pity they can't defend themselves. Or raise their own young." She doesn't smile at me after that, just intertwines my hair in her fingers, braiding it. I touch the beads on her skirt.

"Well, yeah," Doctor tilts his head to the side in a not really agreeing way, "they do have many setbacks. But they proliferate like  _dakrees_ ; every time I think they'll be wiped out I find a new batch of them on some moon."

Scska laughs her water laugh again. "You make them sound parasitic."

Lice. Ticks. Worms. I scratch my leg and look at my food.

"Oh," my doctor points into the hall with a strand of root, "rush to the TARDIS and get some of those  _blursh_  we got on Thirl 5. Scska's never tried one."

 _Blursh_  are brilliant, like bubbly cups you can eat. I push off the soft couch and hear them talking again as I run into the corridor.

This part of the ship is powered down at "night," so only emergency lights are on. It's prettier in the dark, quieter. Today I'm wearing sandals that wrap up around my legs. The soles are falling off, but my doctor taped them and said I can wear them out because he doesn't remember where he got them from; Themyscira maybe.

Partway down the hall I forget about the  _blursh_  because if I jump and land hard the floor makes a ton of noise. Jump-  _shudder-_ jump-  _shudder._  I jump all the way to the end of the corridor where the police box sits quietly with her lights on.

This jump, I land with my hands and feet far apart. Too loud. Loud is bad. Loud is very bad. I crawl backwards super quietly and stand up like reverse melting. Like my head is filled with water, I look up even slower. I see the thing in the ceiling, its limbs and tentacles wound through the cables and wires. Teeth. Stinky teeth. No, it hasn't eaten lately. Yes, it sees me. The TARDIS is now very far away.

My tongue pushes against the roof of my mouth and I breathe only through my nose. I can run back, but it will chase. It will follow me to the room with my doctor and Scska. If I run past it fast to the TARDIS, I know it cannot get in, but then they won't be able to get in either. That, and one of the tentacles just drooped down between us pretending to be a loose cable. A vine. A jungle creature.

Laughter down the hall; it thinks I can't hear the tentacle dropping behind me too. I hear all of it. Ripping a stalk off my food, I hold it in one hand and the main root in the other. Maybe I won't need it. I step toward the tentacle in front of me.

The one behind lunges and I give it the stalk then run for the TARDIS. Yes, I hit the floor, and, yes, the suckers bite into my ankle. Fingers in the gridwork, I hold the large root by my side and press one knee into the grid. The tentacle tugs, the sandal slips off, and I push onto my knee and run again. An encompassing hiss that blocks my ears so that when I finally shout I can't even hear it. Turn, see the great creature descend, open its mouth and-

I jam the root in lengthwise, scream loud and angry. Not fear. Do not let them believe in your fear. Animals are afraid of something that isn't afraid.

Snarling, spitting, it wraps its tentacles around the root, but I'm already slamming the TARDIS door behind me.

With my hand on the lock, I listen for the animal and worry about my doctor. How will he get back to the TARDIS? What will Scska do when we're gone?

There are no sounds through the door except when the animal brushes a tentacle over the door handles, making me hold the lock tighter. No sounds. I swallow the lump in my throat.

The lock turns and the door shoves open a crack.

I run through the back door and go deeper into the ship, searching for a place to hide. It's a honeycomb of interconnected rooms, so I complicate my trail until I find a dark room with a dusty crevice. Squeezing into it, I push myself all the way to the back and sit down with my head covered, but my ears open.

I wait. There are sounds somewhere, but far away. Someone calls my name, but I know that trick. I do not respond.

It must be an hour now that the name calling has been happening, but I do not move. One voice is scared and I know I will be in worse trouble, so I squeeze deeper into the crevice and close my eyes.

Something tickles me. Opening my eyes I see something furry at the end of my nose and scream. 

It withdraws quickly. "Found her!"

A light shines in and I close my eyes to it, growling.

"Oh, thank- someone. Come out here," the light lowers and I see the doctor, "come out here the mean-nasty is back in its cage. I promise."

Behind him I see Scska's beaded skirts, so I come out. Her purple fingers reach down to scoop me up, but the doctor nabs me first, clicking his tongue over the sucker marks on my bare foot. Scska's hairy fingers stroke my face as she apologizes again and again.

"Superficial, they'll heal." The doctor squints in his glasses. "Still, let's take you back and sanitize those."

Scska takes me by one long braid and the doctor by one hand, and together they walk me back through the honeycomb. Now that I can see behind her, I see Scska's braids trail down behind her and drag in her skirts, dark blue strands tangling around gleaming beads. 

"How many years are you, human?" she's asks very politely.

"Almost ten," I answer, still looking at her hair.

She murmurs to the doctor and he murmurs back, "They average sixty in her era."

Scska makes a low, sad sound in her throat and rubs my hair between her fingers. "Outlive your average, little person. Be the best human to ever exist."

"She already has a knack for survival; and giving me dual heart attacks." The doctor winks at me. "I wouldn't worry too much."

I yawn. Scska makes the sad sound again, murmurs again, and they talk over my head the whole way to the infirmary.

 

 

 


	4. The Nightmare

Hills stretch and dip for endless red-purple kilometers, curly grasses shivering in the breeze, and my legs have missed running so, so much.

Wind whips my hair from my face as I charge into the soundless scream of it. My new sandals are stronger, yet I feel barefoot like I'm used to, the ground grunting under each footfall. 

Soon I run out of peak, the grasses turn slowly to rocks, and I hop carefully- skidding mostly- down to a valley while my doctor yells that I be careful. I leap the last step onto a mole hill and sink into the soft dirt until I can't see my toes.

"He'll come out and bite you, you impulsive whelp." My doctor puts his arms out for balance as he skids awkwardly down the hill too. "Dorrtas are notoriously cranky and love little human toes."

"Is that a mole?" I ask. "A dorrta?"

"Here it is, yes, but more like a badger. No, you're Canadian- like a wolverine."

"I'm not Canadian." I don't know what a badger is though. I step off the dirt and shake out my sandals. 

"Don't you still want to see the castle? It's in t'other direction."

I shade my eyes from the primary sun and look up the hill like I can see the castle. "Does it have a moat?"

Doctor shrugs. "Of a sort."

"Does it have a garden?"

"Well, no, it's abandoned."

"Does it have an aviary?"

"You know it hasn't, you just want to keep running around the moor like a heathen."

I smile with my tongue between my teeth.

He shoos me. "Get on with it then. I'll go look at the castle myself."

"What if I fall and get hurt?"

"Oh,  _now_  that concerns you? I trust you." He turns to go.

"But, but wait," I follow him, "what if  _you_  fall and get hurt?"

"Then you'll have the whole planet to yourself and can run and scream all you like without boring, bossypants to ruin it for you."

I wave him off and turn around. "What a whiner."

"Oh, name calling, that's new on you." The direction of his voice means he's turned around too. "Where'd you pick that up? Was it Gidoh the Garrulous on Snave 4? She was saucy. Oi, I'm speaking to you."

"I can't hear you," I yell, while thinking it would be great to have hair that's curly like this grass. I yank a wad up with both hands because the ground is very dry.

"Just don't hurt yourself, I'll be back in one hour. Can you promise not to break any bones, fall into any pits, or get eaten in one hour?"

"I can't  _hear_  you." I stomp the dirt off the roots and put the grass on my head. I must look amazing.

"Don't worry I'm sure all the sweets at the castle wouldn't be to your liking anyway. I'll just eat them for you."

I turn around. "What kind of sweets?"

He just stares at my beautiful hair. "Thought you couldn't hear me."

Annoyed, I turn away again and head for a plush patch on another hill, more purpley than what I'm currently wearing.

"One hour," he shouts again.

 

The roots of the purple grass smell nice, so I carry them in each hand and sniff them as I walk. My pockets are filled with blue rocks that caught the sun, and my lips are tight from fruit juice off a tall, green plant. I don't know how long an hour is, so I keep looking back to see if my doctor's returned yet.

I run out of hills and find an abundance of yellow desert, ground cracked with tiny wrinkles like a biscuit top. Places with a lot of water usually have bigger cracks, sometimes big enough to put your foot through, so this is kind of boring. Then I spot a rock out in the middle and run to it with my arms up like a bird, like my doctor coming down the hill. 

I leap onto the rock with both feet and caw, flapping my grassy wingtips. I stop when I notice the long trail behind the rock like something pushed it here. No, because I left footprints in the dust and there are no footprints here, just the trail that the rock scraped.

Balancing on one leg, I lean down just to see how far I can lean down while staring at the trail. I fall, scraping my palms on pebbles and my knee on the rock. 

It isn't bad. My hands hurt more, but my knee is bleeding a tiny bit. I pinch the cut to get the blood out and wipe it away, hissing like it's really bad. Standing up, I hop in a circle on my good leg to find my grass bunches I dropped, and see another trail on the dirt. I pick up the prettier bunch of grass and follow that trail.

 Another rock at the end of the trail, but this time there's something sitting in its shade. I step back and crane my neck to see it, to maybe smell it if it's smelly. It does nothing, so I come around the rock and squat next to it.

It has a shell and a little head, but I do not see its legs until I crouch next to it and peer at its belly. The legs are so short! It's not a turtle though, which disappoints me because I've always wanted to see a turtle. I suck sweat off my upper lip and lie down in the shade next to it, using the grass as a pillow.

"Do you know I'm here?" I whisper. "Okay. I won't eat you."

I stare at it for a long time.

Then, there's that sound at the door, but I cannot move. I want to climb into that shell with the thing, but it doesn't wake up. The Earth doctor- coldhearted- comes in, talking. He is not angry and that alone terrifies me. I cannot move off the chilly table, I cannot turn my head to see him, I cannot growl or bite or kick. My face hurts from trying to make it move and every muscle knows he is close, every hair trembles before he touches. He grabs my leg and I scream my hardest.

When I open my eyes the shell creature is gone, but the bad doctor still has my leg. He's tugging on it, dragging me away. I turn over, see a very large bird has my ankle in its beak and is pulling with all its might. I screech at it and it drops me and flaps away a meter. We stare at each other a second before it yawps at me once. Twice. Then it flies away.

The nearest sun is setting and with it the temperature. I blink at the far sun promising an extra hour of light, but not heat. The ground has already cooled.

On a slim tree the bird yawps again, reminding me of cold fingers on my leg. I rub off the feeling and head for the tree, but the bird takes off and lights on another tree where it calls me again. I follow it from tree to tree until we're in a forest, and then it disappears into a hollow trunk in the canopy. 

There I stop. Beyond the treeline, in the desert, I can hear the wind whipping in a way it wasn't before. The temperature isn't dropping as fast in the forest, but the skin of my legs still prickles. Pulling my hands into my sleeves, I step carefully around fallen branches, wary of snakes and large spiders, keeping one hand on the bird's tree.

It gets colder, and I remember snow and the doctors and how hungry I was. In the TARDIS my whole body started to hurt as I thawed, and later this doctor said I was malnourished because my skin was peeling. Not enough sunlight, too many scars, possibly frostbite, and permanent crooked pinkie fingers. 

I curl up in the leaves at the base of the bird's tree, shifting them over myself until I reach the warm dirt. Pulling my head and arms into my shirt, I dig my toes into the soil and hope they don't find me.

But I'm in that room again, hitting the door and crying that they let me out. I did everything to stay out and still I'm here again? Banging on the door will make them angry, but I need them to open this door I  _need_  to get out. The door finally gives, bark splintering, and a few more hits makes a hole big enough for me stick my head through. I look down and see a pile of leaves at the foot of the tree. It's me, I made it out, but what if they come looking, won't they find me there?

At the sound of an approaching snow machine I slip. I spin to the ground, tightened up in a ball as the machine gets closer and louder, and I hold very still in the leaves and hope it doesn't run over me.

The whirring stops. My name is called, my real one. I know it's my doctor, I don't think I'm on Earth, and no one is looking for me. I call back, but too quietly to hear. I wait until I hear my name a second time before moving. The leaves making a cracking sound, so I lie still. Moving again they crack again, moving not like leaves but like one solid thing. 

My name is closer, so I yell to it and push up through the hard leaves. They froze into a shell over top of me. My face stings like I'm in snow again, and I start to panic, afraid I'm on Earth after all.

"You alright?" the doctor shouts. Whirring again, his screwdriver. I keep my head above the leaves only because underneath it's almost warm. A torch is aimed at me and I shut my eyes. 

The doctor sighs loudly. "You...you...I didn't think you'd get so far before sunset. Give me your hand." He pulls me up out of the leaves and drops a big blanket on me before picking me up. "Oi, you've gotten heavier. Must be feedin' you right."

He carries me out of the forest, talking and catching his breath. When we cross the desert I hear his shoes crunching ice here too.

"Lucky you left all that grass lying around idn't it? Only way I knew where you'd gone."

"The rocks move," I say.

"It's the nightly temperatures, they just slide around on the ice. Almost there."

I listen for sliding rocks during the last few steps before we enter the TARDIS. He deposits me by the warm console, and I curl up on the bench in my blanket, wondering what there is to eat. The doctor returns from closing the door.

"Are you alright then? You haven't been hurt?"

I wipe my nose on my hand. "I fell and cut my knee."

"Oh, bad?" When I shake my head he nods upward. "Why'd you run into the forest?"

"A bird told me to." And I haven't finished running away.

The doctor curls his lips down. "Right. Off we go then."

I slide off the bench, still in my blanket, and follow him around the console as we run away again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	5. The Departure

Pressing my feet to the floor and locking my knees, I giggle and pull on the string again. The room tilts, stuff rolls past us, and the TARDIS groans just a smidge.

"Whoaaah." He puts on his big smile. "Look at you. Near perfect landing."

I move my large hat a little. The big feather was falling in my eyes.

My doctor bounds over to the door. "A'right then, let's see where we are."

Unwinding the string from my wrist I run after him, my big boots clonky over the metal floor. He pops his head out the door and I squeeze around his coat to look out.

"What is it?" I ask, taking off the hat and leaving it by the door.

"Well...it's a city. Not quite sure which one though." He puckers his lower lip, making his chin disappear. I chew on a strand of my hair because the soap is so nice. Not in my eyes though.

"Grab that coat," he jabs his finger at a coat we found for me. I hurry to put it on, and put my head in the hood because it's dark and I feel like no one can see me. I run back to the door just as he steps out.

As we walk down the street I put my hands in my pockets like he does, trying not to step in puddles because these aren't my boots to keep. It's a large city filled with strange people. Some of them are loud from buildings or smell bad on corners where they smoke neon cigarettes. I stay close to my doctor and pull my coat around me.

In a market he chats with ladies, smiling and asking stuff. I stare at strange fish in a tank. They're pretty, but not pretty enough not to eat so I know that's what they're for. We've been to these before, but never on this planet. I don't recognize any race here except the humans. My doctor's brow bends, and he looks over his shoulder.

"Really though where are we?"

While I wait for him to find out I look up to see if I can see the top of this building, but it's too tall. I lean my head all the way back and my hood falls off. There is a lot of traffic, layers of it, maybe seven. I can see the sky, kind of cloudy, but not much of it. The tallest building I can see is higher than the last layer of sky streets.

Dizzy. I step back and blink to not fall down. Looking around, I see my doctor is gone. He'll be back, he's probably talking to those ladies again. When a large machine moves out of the way I can see there he is talking. There's a noise in an alley, so I look and see there's an animal thing. It has three eyes and purrs, rubbing against the wall.

"Hi." I say.

It coughs, saying 'hi' back. I walk over to it. It jumps. It's a kid animal who wants to play, so when it runs away down the alley I chase it.

I chase it back to its house maybe when it jumps up high and onto an awning, and disappears in a window. I smell food. I follow the food.

At the food stand the blue, pudgy vendor gives me a dirty look as he flips shellfish on the skillet. People stand around waiting. I stand around too, eating the smell until he flicks a large spoon at me. I move on, still not recognizing anybody. 

All the buildings are very tall now. I come to steps, lots of steps, hundreds of steps that make me want to run up them. Far up on the steps I see people wearing cloaks and robes. The traffic layers look like lines of ants crawling above this building, neat and tiny. This is a castle or a palace where queens live. I'm going to climb these steps, and when I get to the top I'll meet the queen and she'll let me play in her garden and live in her kitchen and climb to the very top so I can see the sky streets.

I hear a whooshing sound. No.

I race back, past the vendor, down the alley, skirt the tall building, ignore the fish, around the ladies, and-

The TARDIS is gone.


End file.
